An appeal to void a student referendum that would abolish Illinois Student Government was denied by the Student Elections Commission Monday, three days after nearly all of the 4,100 petition signatures supporting the referendum were stolen.

The SEC overwhelmingly rejected the appeal by student senator Felipe Hillard, which stated that the sponsor of the referendum, the registered student organization Reform ISG, did not collect petition signers' addresses as stated in the ISG by-laws.

The by-laws state referendum petitions require students' "signatures, addresses, and network identifications".

The Reform ISG petitions asked students for their name, signature, and Net ID.

"I understand that a large section of the (ISG) constitution is uninterpretable," Hillard said. "But not this section."

SEC members disagreed, and said that Net IDs were equivelent to e-mail addresses, which were equivilent to addresses.

Some members said Net ID was the same as an e-mail address, pointing out that many petition signers put their e-mail address under the "Net ID" column.

"I can look at it both ways," said SEC member Dennis Tighe. "(Some say) Net IDs aren't the same as e-mail address, but In the system we're working under it does."

ISG by-laws also charged them with determining whether a petition was valid, SEC members said.

Other SEC members said they would be concerned if the referendum supported by more than 4,000 students was thrown out on a technicality.

"If we're going to ignore the will of the people over a small form of protocol, then I have a concern," said SEC member David Wilhelm.

Ryan Hubbard, the lone SEC member to support the appeal, said "maybe the by-laws are fucked up, but we don't have any way to make sure. Fix the by-laws, take it out, and push it back to spring."

Finally, SEC chair Jessica Flanigan said she and the previous SEC chair approved the Reform ISG petition previously.

All of the SEC members at Monday's meeting had signed the Reform ISG petition.

The vote on the proposal will take place Nov. 11 and 12, pending further appeal. Students will vote on a plan that would abolish the ISG assembly, turning over its power to the Student Senate Caucus. Student body president, vice president and treasurer would be elected by the caucus under the proposal, rather than by the student body under the current system.

The ISG assembly members in attendance were angered by the decision.

"Impartial? Not even close," Hillard said of the SEC. "What's Lebowski's line? 'This isn't Vietnam.'"

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and an address by any other name means the same thing," said ISG Chief of Staff Ben Wagner. "It's not up to you to interpret. You don't change (the by-laws) on your own."

Other members were concerned that each SEC member verified only 10 percent of their portion of the petitions they received, and that each member decided their own standard for declaring the validity of a petition.

Hillard said he would appeal the matter to the Constitutional Review Board.

SEC members had only a few Reform ISG petitions to refer to, as most of the signatures were in Flanigan's purse that was stolen from the RSO Complex in the Illini Union Friday morning.

Flanigan said she placed the purse under the desk of the cubicle she was working in to go to the bathroom.

When she returned a couple minutes later, the purse was gone, she said.

The cubicle was away from normal pedestrian traffic, and the purse was placed out of sight of passers-by, she said.

"Someone would've had to know that's where I was," Flanigan said.

Flanigan said the incident was "an obvious attempt to undermine the entire system."

If it affects the process, "Whoever took my purse is kind of winning."

"I just want the signatures and my purse back," she said.

Both ISG and Reform ISG officials condemned the theft.

"That someone would want to keep this reform off the ballot enough to physically steal the signatures is unbelievable," said Reform ISG leader Vilas Dhar.

"I don't think anyone benefits from (the petitions) being taken," said assembly member Brian Colgan.